They run out of the alley way just to see how three Minerau soldiers bust out of the main entrance. They’re holding crystalized spears with energy twirling around inside them. Then one of the Minerau point in the direction of the group and the other two rush to get to them.
TD sighs: “Felt like today was going to go like this, you ready Desai?”
Desai nods his head and they step forward casually rolling their shoulders sliding the weightless backpacks off their backs. They start to pull energy out of their bracelets as the aliens rapidly approach. One of the Minerau let out a loud howl that’s heard throughout the area and charges ahead after banging their staffs on their chest. The other two flank it from both sides. Desai quickly creates an energy sword which he splits into two for each hand, meanwhile TD creates a long whip with a large energy ball at the end of it similar to an ancient meteor hammer. Razzo steps up, throws his backpack off and begins to draw energy from his fist, Desai looks back and sees this, he shakes his head.
Desai yells back to him: “Stay back kid, let the grown ups handle this!”
Razzo goes and takes another step forward but TD turns his head towards him and shakes his head. Razzo slumps his shoulders as he takes a step back disappointingly. At this point the Minerau soldier have almost run close enough to engage them, and TD starts to spin the meteor hammer first in his hand then once he gets it the diameter of the circle large enough he raises it above his head stepping up to be behind Desai and help him out. As the Minerau approach they can make out them out better with two being blue and the third yellow. The blue and yellow Minerau engage Desai in combat with the blue swinging its spear at Desai’s head trying to cut him in half from the top and the yellow Minerau swinging across trying to split him at his torso. Desai parries one strike coming overhead with a sword and moves out of the way of the second strike while stepping on the tip of the spear he parried and slashing at the blue Minerau’s lower leg and taking out half of the Minerau’s leg. The rockish brute screeches in pain as it drops down on its severed side. At the same time the other blue Minerau closes the gap on Desai and as he’s about to stab him in the back as TD swings the meteor hammer across the arm shattering the rock beings arm.
TD looks over at Desai and yells: “WATCH OUT!!”
The message comes a little too late as Desai turns and parries a spear hit late from the yellow Minerau with the spear cutting across his chest and ends up stabbing him in the left shoulder. As the yellow Minerau is about to pull out the spear and finish Desai, Dre, not able to watch anymore, slings off the satchel and runs towards the Minerau, slide tackling the Minerau knocking it off balance.
The Minerau exclaims: “You little shit we should have ended your kind on Mars!”
“You’ll pay for that too!” - yells Dre.
Dre grapples with the Minerau on the ground while TD works with the meteor hammer against the other blue Minerau left with one arm. They dance back and forth with the Minerau jabbing with the spear in one arm trying to find an opening while TD deflects and dodges every swing with his meteor hammer. Finally as the Minerau closes the distance thinking it has created an advantage for itself and swings its spear TD dodges the spear and grabs it with one hand while swinging the meteor hammer with the other. The hammer swings and coils up around the neck area of the Minerau and TD slides under the helpless Minerau jerking the spear and meteor hammer with him. The action pulls down the Minerau and TD yanks the energy meteor hammer splitting up the Minerau down the middle into a pile of rocks. TD drops the meteor hammer as it fades into the ground he leans on the Minerau spear exhausted from all the energy used to power his weapon. TD turns back to see the yellow Minerau beating Dre into the ground and getting up as the Automaton’s banged up body rests on the ground twitching. As the yellow Minerau is getting up TD points at him.
TD looks over at Razzo and with his last energy yells: “GO!!” before falling to the ground and fainting next to the staff.
Razzo mutters under his breath: “finally…”
Razzo charges up his fists instead of making a weapon with coiled energy of blue yellow and red with sparks flying around each fist. He runs up and jumps over Desai and shows his fists to the yellow Minerau.
The Minerau laughs and says: “You’re better off making a weapon youngling I’ll crush you!”
“Cool beans” - casually replies Razzo.
He jumps into action wildly swinging at the Minerau barely making contact and missing most of his punches. As Razzo’s about to land his first punch the Minerau catches his arm and sends a punch at his chest knocking him back. Then the Minerau goes on the offensive hitting Razzo in the face, in the chest, in the stomach, but no matter how many punches the Minerau throws Razzo won’t fall but takes one step back with every punch. He gets hit in the face and sees that they’re almost at Desai’s body and not wanting the Minerau to get to his spear Razzo uses his energy on one punch. Without much thought he throws it right down the middle. Not anticipating the strike the Minerau misses his own as Razzo’s strike connects punching through the stone creature causing the chest of the alien to fly through the sky exploding from all the energy in the blow. The Minerau drops to its knees and falls over. With the other injured Minerau having fled and the last one turning into a pile of rubble, Razzo runs over and checks to make sure Dre is okay. Dre lies beat with dents all over its body.
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Razzo asks in a shaky voice: “So like… are you dead?”
Dre smiles and says: “No you idiot but I’ll survive, go check on the others”.
Razzo goes to run over to Desai, he bends over him and asks him: “Do anything to show you’re alive”
Desai grunts and kicks him in the leg, tripping him and dropping Razzo on his butt.
Razzo gets up and shakes his head saying: “Well you could have just told me”.
Finally he walks over to TD and helps pick him up. As he’s picking up the scout, TD regains consciousness still shaking at the knees a little bit and using the spear to hold himself up, looks around at the state of everyone.
TD says quietly: “We gotta get out of here asap before more come to see all the commotion. Plus I don’t want you guys to be part of the statistic”.
Razzo nods his head and goes over to Desai who’s lying on the ground groaning in pain.
Dre limps over: “What do we do with him? I’m guessing you don’t just leave behind your wounded like other species”.
“Of course not! I’m just not sure how we can carry him though” - exclaims Razzo in shock of hearing that.
TD walks over and looks down at his friend and his gruesome injury.
TD says: “well we already alerted the Minerau in the area that we’re here and dragging him will only cause more damage from the spear. See how around the tip there’s a blue rock-like texture that is spreading a bit?”
Razzo and Dre look down and see around the shoulder where the spear broke the skin and entered the shoulder there began to be a sort of crystalized spread around the wound, almost like a scab but instead in blue mineral shards. Razzo nods his head and repeats himself: “So how do we get it out of him then?”
TD gives him a simple answer: “We don’t…”
With one hand still used to lean on the spear, TD goes and unhooks his cloak with the other hand. His armor is all scratched up and has lots of different cuts all over it and some even going beyond the armor to the inner layer of the suit. Along the worn out pants there are pockets that appear to be full on either side. TD opens one of the pockets and pulls out a metal chip and rubs it with his fingers. Within a couple moments Razzo and Dre lookup as they hear a whooshing noise and an object flies through the air. As it approaches from above they are able to make out its shape and it’s the same as the veicolo volante 420 that Razzo had crashed. Except this one was bigger and longer as if they turned a loaf of bread into an anti gravity machine. As the machine settles down near them TD opens up the vehicle and goes into the machine to pull out a large metal magnetic board. He then goes over to Desai and draws a small energy dagger that he sharpens with his fingers. With a quick motion he swings the dagger near the bottom of the spear and cuts it off. As the spear slides off the tip that’s still in the shoulder and is about to fall over onto Desai, TD catches it with his free hand. He then goes over to the magnetic board and presses a few spots and a display pops up. He selects what he wants and the magnetic board floats over to Desai.
TD says: “Lift his head”.
Razzo lifts Desai’s head and as he does the board goes underneath his head and uses magnetic propulsion technique to slide Desai’s body up the board. It then goes back to being completely horizontal and slides into the back of the flying vehicle.
TD then tells Razzo: “Throw the backpacks and satchel in the middle of volare 694”.
Razzo goes over and picks up all the bags and carefully places them between the front section and the back section of the vehicle.
TD walks over to the vehicle and puts his palm on it with the nanobots receding and opening up a hole for all of them to climb into the front of it. TD casually waves them over and Dre limps over and Razzo slings Dre’s arm over his neck and helps the Automaton into the vehicle. TD goes and picks a few controls in the middle display of the vehicle and rests his back on the semi circle sofa that they were all sitting on.
TD sighs and says: “Thank god we made it out today we were lucky those soldiers were on their off day otherwise we would have been killed for sure. Also good job jumping in saving our skin back there”.
TD goes and draws a little bit of energy to his index fingers and shoots finger guns at the two of them.
“So where are we off to now?” - Razzo asks with a big smile not remembering when the last time he received a compliment.
TD quietly replies: “Back to base, I’m going to get some sleep before we get there though and would recommend the same for the two of you”.
TD touches his helmet and it goes dark like a void without color, a couple minutes later Dre and Razzo hear the scout snoring throughout the cabin. Dre and Razzo look at each other and begin to laugh.
“Like you’re supposed to sleep through that, I don’t even think I could remain off with such a disturbance” - says Dre in a happy tone even whilst heavily battered.
Razzo replies: “I don’t even need to sleep but if I did I would definitely kick this guy and tell him to shut up. By the way, good job slide tackling that Minerau, quick thinking”.
“Thanks, you too, waited till the end there to jump in but better than nothing, glad you helped out” - teases Dre.
Dre puts his elbow up: “Elbow fist bump? Why don’t they just call it an E.F.B.?”
Razzo puts his elbow up to Dre and touches elbows and bumps his fist with Dre.
Razzo puts his arm down and says: “I don’t know but that’s a pretty good name for it though, I’m going to use that”.
They both lie back on the sofa and relax after an exhausting mission. There’s a calmness in the air, for once they’re at a point where they can both take a moment and have their thoughts catch up to them and relax a little bit. Sure someone has a spear bit in their shoulder, the other is fatigued to the point where they may sleep forever, and a whole Minerau Fleet might come down the neighborhoods looking for them. But in this moment flying through the very late night sky with the goods secured they could rest a little bit.
Dre says: “Okay I’m going to try to power down for a bit so as to not waste energy, wake me up if anything happens”.
“Will do”.
Dre powers down and Razzo stares at the transparent roof of the vehicle processing what he just experienced and having an abundance of hope for what will follow.